


Remnants

by All_My_Characters_Are_Dead



Series: Does Not Compute [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Locus gets an AI, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 09:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_My_Characters_Are_Dead/pseuds/All_My_Characters_Are_Dead
Summary: He slid the chip into the port on the back of his helmet.The second text flashed across his HUD telling him there was an AI present and it was starting up, Locus realized this was probably the most insanely stupid thing he had done in...a while. A long while.And then a hologram appeared, the AI’s avatar, and the world stopped.





	Remnants

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to TheFoolXXII_Max_X for beta reading this for me!!

The AI hadn’t seen anything worth his time in a long while, but the news coverage of the sim troopers was so far below him that every time it came on any of the feeds in the ship formerly known as the Staff of Charon, he changed it. 

Nearly a year hiding from security sweeps in the ship’s systems had been bad enough, but this made everything worse. 

He didn’t want to know what the colorful morons in the news were up to. Didn’t want to hear them praised again and again like they had ever done anything special or admirable in their entire miserable lives. 

Another feed was playing raw footage from the news release. He was about to turn it off completely - who cared what the morons who had taken the ship after Hargrove’s fall wanted, anyway - when he caught a glimpse of something in the corner of the screen that didn’t belong.

Something familiar. 

He waited through the rest of the broadcast, but only caught glimpses. It looked like they were purposefully using shots that didn’t include what he was looking for, and that was unacceptable. 

The AI diverted part of his attention to making sure no one would realize what he was doing; he’d managed to go this long without being detected, and he sure as shit wasn’t going to be caught now. 

The rest of his attention, he focused on combing through every single scrap of footage, throwing out anything that didn’t have what he was looking for. 

Eventually, his search led him to the whole collection of raw footage used in the broadcast. 

He had to do a little hacking and some manipulation of some poor entry level worker at the news station to get access, but he managed. He was too good to let a little thing like  _ firewalls _ stop him.

There. 

It wasn’t much, but…

“I’m not here to kill you.”

There. There he was. 

The armor was different - no, wait, same armor, just different paint - but he  _ knew  _ that voice,  _ knew _ the way that person moved. 

Locus. 

Locus was  _ alive. _ The AI had thought he died on Chorus, but apparently one of Hargrove’s deadliest employees was still kicking. And he had found the sim troopers. The AI went back through every scrap of footage, searching. 

No direct mention of Locus, or where he had gone. 

But there  _ was  _ the mysterious case of what had happened to poor little Washington after his injury, which he set to play on a loop in the background as a reward to himself for being so observant. Something about that particular clip just seemed to warm his artificial heart. 

Washington was on Chorus, in a hospital. Stable, but weak, and no one seemed to know how he had gotten there. 

Except him, who knew that for some reason, Locus was with the sim troopers, and was the only possible way they could have gotten Washington to a medical facility in time while the others went on to play hero. 

Anger burned through him, and he focused on watching Washington take a bullet through the neck a few more times to calm himself down. 

He didn’t know what had happened to make Locus decide to work with the sims, but maybe, now that he knew where Washington was, it was time to find out. 

He was glad it was impossible for anyone to see him smirk as he set about making preparations. 

Locus was  _ his, _ and he wasn’t about to let the damned sim troopers keep him. 

* * *

 

Locus hadn’t meant to stick around after dropping Washington off at the hospital, but he couldn’t just...leave. He’d gone through too much trouble trying to save him, and he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Dr. Grey not to try some crazy experiment on him while he was unconscious. 

So he waited, his active camo unit keeping him hidden, and watched over Washington while he waited for the sim troopers to arrive. 

Which was why he was there when one of the nurses came in and put something in Washington’s hand. Locus was immediately suspicious; it broke the pattern of care the hospital staff had been maintaining, after all. The comment the nurse made was strange, too. Something about someone anonymously sending Washington a weird get well present. Once the nurse was gone, Locus approached the bed and carefully took the object from Washington’s limp hand. 

Locus knew what it was the second he picked it up. 

An AI chip, the kind meant to be inserted into a helmet or a port on a ship or control room to allow the AI access to whatever systems connected to the port. 

Locus stared down at the chip for a long moment, wondering why anyone would have one of these laying around, and why they would send it to Washington if they did. 

Whatever the reason, Locus didn’t trust this development one bit. He certainly wasn’t going to leave some unknown AI around for anyone to pick up, or - god forbid - for Washington to find when he woke up. 

Locus frowned inside his helmet. Price had mentioned something...

_ “Agent Washington refuses AI access to his implants.” _

Anyone who knew Washington was there and would send him something like this would surely know that the ex-Freelancer would never put this in his helmet. So it had to have some other purpose. Or some other person. And anyone who knew Washington was in this particular hospital would know that the Reds and Blues hadn’t arrived yet. 

Locus shivered in the temperature controlled confines of his armor. 

There was no way anyone could know he was there...right?

He should get the chip scanned, try to find out what was on it, but he didn’t have access to that kind of resource at the moment, and he couldn’t exactly ask the people of Chorus to investigate it for him. 

So Locus did the next best thing. He slid the chip into the port on the back of his helmet.

The second text flashed across his HUD telling him there was an AI present and it was starting up, Locus realized this was probably the most insanely stupid thing he had done in...a while. A long while. 

And then a hologram appeared, the AI’s avatar, and the world stopped.

The projection was a deep orange, a shade that still snagged his attention whenever he saw it, forming the shape of achingly familiar armor that he had been positive he would never see again, and he’d been conflicted over the idea. 

How was he supposed to just...move on from a partnership that had been the only constant in his life for...for years,  _ decades, _ no matter how much manipulation had been involved in that bond?

“Hey, partner.”

Locus flinched so hard he knocked over one of the monitors and yanked the AI chip out of his helmet, staring down at it like it was a grenade about to blow up in his hand.

_“Felix?”_

* * *

 

Locus retreated to his ship, forced to take it slowly on his way out of the hospital because someone had noticed the monitor falling over, and everyone was rushing toward Washington’s room. The staff would be on alert for a while, if they had any competence in security at all. Washington would be safe for now. 

Locus sat in A’rynasea’s cockpit, turning the AI chip over in his hands, searching for any sign that he had somehow misunderstood something. Anything.

He couldn’t have seen and heard what he thought he did, after all. 

Felix was dead, and while he hadn’t exactly been the most... _ shining _ example of humanity, he had been human. 

Painfully so, from the way his voice had shifted and trembled in the seconds before he had been thrown off the tower. 

So this...this AI had to be impersonating him for some reason. Maybe Hargrove or one of his allies had decided to fuck with Locus, but that would mean they had to have access to an AI, which they hadn’t, as far as Locus knew. 

That had been a particularly memorable issue Hargrove had, actually. He’d mentioned that getting an AI through legitimate means was proving to be a challenge. 

Unfortunately, that didn’t explain anything about where  _ this _ AI and its chosen appearance and voice had come from, or why it had ended up in Washington’s hospital room.

Locus stared down at the chip, rubbing his thumb over it for a long moment, turning his options over in his mind. 

He supposed he could track down the nurse that had delivered it, try to get some answers that way, but the whole point of using his active camo was so no one knew he was there. Not that that strategy seemed to be working terribly well. 

Still, it might be faster to just...ask the AI about itself. 

Briefly, Locus considered putting the chip into A’rynasea’s port instead of the one in his helmet, but that seemed like a bigger risk. Locus could survive if he had to get a new set of armor because something went wrong with the AI. He was fairly certain he couldn’t replace his ship. 

Slowly, fully aware this time that what he was about to do was probably incredibly stupid, Locus slid the chip into the port on the back of his helmet and waited. 

“You  _ asshole!” _ The AI’s avatar was exactly as Locus remembered; Felix’s favorite shade of orange, complete with a solid orange version of Felix’s armor. “You can’t just  _ yank me _ like that!” 

“Obviously I can.” Locus suppressed a sigh. Whatever this AI’s purpose, whatever the reason it was appearing and sounding like Felix, it was doing a damn good job. It was enough to make him want to destroy the chip. Just to be safe. Even if this thing couldn’t possibly actually be Felix, anything trying to be him was incredibly dangerous. 

“You-”

“I want answers.” Locus didn’t give the AI time to recover. Anything he could do to get the upper hand against this thing would help. “What are you?”

“And here I thought that was fucking  _ obvious, _ all things considered,” the AI complained. “Shit, man, I thought robots could, like, recognize their own kind.” 

“Why are you acting like this?”  _ Why are you acting like him? _

“Why do you think?” The little orange suit of armor floating in front of him sounded so much like Felix, specifically like a smirking Felix who thought Locus was overthinking or just not catching on and was enjoying it. The worst part was, Locus didn’t know what answer would make him -  _ it, _ this thing was  _ not _ Felix - shut up. 

“What do you want?” Locus asked instead. It must want  _ something, _ or the person who sent it did, or it wouldn’t have ended up in Washington’s hand. The sooner he found out what this thing’s goal was, the sooner he could put a stop to it and smash the chip into a thousand pieces. 

“I want to get my life back.” The AI shrugged, flipping a hologram dagger in its hand the same way Felix had when he was still alive. “And I think a good place to start is finding out who killed me and returning the favor. Don’t you think,  _ partner?” _

Locus hesitated, remembering the top of the communications tower, the choice he’d made, the scream from Felix as he fell. That sound, the sight of orange-striped armor being blasted over the tower’s edge, still chased him whenever he closed his eyes.

But this wasn’t Felix. It was just an AI impersonating him. 

“We aren’t partners,” Locus growled, reaching for the chip in his helmet. If this thing wasn’t going to be helpful, it was safer to just destroy it like he should have done in the first place. 

Anything that knew enough about Felix to act this much like him was too dangerous not to get rid of. 

“Why? Because I’m dead? Or because you decided to be buddies with the sim troopers instead of finding my killer? Or maybe you think the sims can put you back together, is that it,  _ Sam?” _ Locus’ fingers froze as they brushed the chip. 

“How do you know that name?” He and Felix had made sure there was no trace of who they had been. No way to tie their real names to the mercenaries they became. It shouldn’t even be in any database,  _ anywhere, _ so even an AI shouldn’t have been able to find it. No one should know that name. No one except…

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” The AI sighed, shaking its head, and then the helmet was gone, revealing a face beneath it that Locus knew as well as his own, even if - like the name that matched it - no one should know enough to use it. “You know, I always knew you weren’t the brightest, but this is a new low for you.” 

“Isaac.” He didn’t know how it was possible, didn’t know why this was happening, but there he was. That was definitely  _ his _ face, to match  _ his  _ armor,  _ his _ stupid knife trick,  _ his _ stupid obnoxious shade of orange. 

“Finally.” The AI smirked at him. 

“But...how?” Locus couldn’t think. It couldn’t be him, but it couldn’t be anyone else. Every cell in his body screamed to rip the chip out and destroy it, but he couldn’t seem to make his hands move.

“Hargrove would have  _ preferred _ a legal AI for his crazy Meta suit, but he knew he needed a backup plan. So he made me. Cloned my brain, or the human version of me’s brain. Sadly, I only have memories from  _ before _ the cloning, and with Hargrove’s ship trashed…”

That wasn’t...possible. Hargrove couldn’t have...surely Locus would have  _ known. _

The hologram stretched, watching Locus with narrowed eyes as it waited for him to process everything. Apparently, he was taking too long, because the little hologram groaned and lobbed a holographic orange knife at him that went through his armor’s chestplate. 

“Hey! Quit thinking so much!” The AI scowled. “Whatever’s bugging you, just forget it. I’m back - sort of - and now it’s time things got back to normal, don’t you think?” 

Normal.

Normal was being alone on A’rynasea, drifting from mission to mission. 

Normal was hiding in a hospital to make sure his rescue of his former enemies wasn’t in vain. 

Normal wasn’t... _ this, _ anymore. It wasn’t listening to Felix’s inane rants, or letting himself be led around by the nose just because Felix had figured out how to manipulate him.

Which he had done for  _ years. _

“Normal? Is that what you call what we were?” Locus couldn’t quite keep the emotion out of his voice, especially since he wasn’t sure what that emotion actually was. He just knew that he was  _ shaking _ with it. “You  _ used _ me, Felix. For  _ years.” _

“And from what I can tell, you were just fine with that,” Felix retorted. “All you wanted to be was a dog, a  _ machine, _ following orders so you didn’t have to worry about what you were actually doing!” 

“I was  _ broken.  _ Which you were more than happy to take advantage of.” Locus found himself snarling, at this AI version of Felix who hadn’t changed a bit despite being dead, at the fact that he was faced with his past while he was awake as well as in his nightmares, at himself for not just destroying the damned chip when he found it. “At least I managed to realize what I was and change before it got me killed.” 

“Speaking of which, how  _ did _ that happen?” Felix’s voice was sharp, and there were little holographic knives in his hands again. Shit. “Come on,  _ partner, _ you-”

Locus pulled the chip out. 

He couldn’t take hearing another word in that voice. 

That voice had led him to more and more questionable jobs. It had led him down the path to becoming a monster. For years, that voice had been what he thought was both driving him crazy and keeping him sane. But that was before he found out the truth. 

Before he let Felix die. Before he had to choose between his own freedom, the chance at not being a monster anymore, and the only constant in his life for more years than he cared to count. 

And that was the problem. He had chosen himself over the mission, over Felix, and he was still dealing with the results of that. If this AI was really made from Felix’s brain, and it knew what Locus had done, it would turn on him in a second, just like he had turned on the real Felix. 

But the AI didn’t know. 

It only knew the human version of its mind was dead. 

Maybe this was a second chance, of sorts. Locus had tried to ask Felix to abandon the mission with him, before he betrayed him. Felix hadn’t listened, before. Maybe this time he would. Maybe this time Felix could find more to life than money and blood and vengeance, like Locus was trying to find more than following orders for himself. 

He just had to maintain control of the situation and try to influence Felix the master manipulator without getting caught. 

Locus’ fingers trembled as he slid the chip back into his helmet. 

“Okay,  _ partner, _ we’re going to have a  _ talk _ about that!” Felix snarled as his hologram reappeared. “You  _ can’t _ keep doing that!” 

“Why not? I’ve always been willing to mute you,” Locus retorted, fighting down the anger boiling in his veins. If he wanted to try this, he was going to have to control himself better, not get baited by Felix again. 

“That’s not the same thing, you moronic piece of shit!” Felix’s hologram fizzed at the edges, apparently so furious he was having trouble maintaining his avatar. 

“That’s unfortunate for you,” Locus replied, bracing himself. “Now, do you want to know how you died, or not?”

“Don’t you fucking dare change the subject!” 

“The sim troopers killed you.” That seemed to derail Felix, if the way his avatar flickered was any indication. 

“What the fuck? That’s impossible! There’s no way those morons could have laid a finger on me!” Locus wasn’t sure if Felix’s ego being intact was a good thing or not, but at least it made him the tiniest bit more predictable. And maybe if Felix was still full of himself, he wouldn’t realize Locus was about to lie to him.

“We always underestimated them, and when you and I got separated, it cost you your life.” Locus wondered if Felix could tell how upset he was, if he would interpret the reaction as frustration at failing, or from losing his partner. 

“And after the sim troopers killed me, you decided to go be friends with them?” Felix’s avatar was flickering again. 

“I found out what you did,” Locus growled. “They didn’t seem so bad after finding out the partner they killed had been manipulating me for the last decade.” 

“So it’s all about you, then,” Felix sneered. 

“It is now. You always picked the jobs before. Now I’m choosing what I do for myself.” Locus hesitated, wondering if he really wanted to do this. If he really wanted to risk working with any form of Felix again. A blinking light on A’rynasea’s controls caught his attention. Someone was trying to contact him. “Speaking of which. Stay quiet or I’ll pull you again.” 

* * *

 

“What? Why should I- fine! Shutting up!” Felix snapped as Locus’ hand went for the chip He had to find a way to make Locus stop doing that. Felix  _ hated _ being pulled. When he made his plan to download himself into the chip and mail himself somewhere he was sure Locus would find him, he hadn’t realized how bad being trapped in that chip would be. 

No new information. No way to communicate with anyone or anything. Nothing to do but sit and think for what felt like forever. 

Even the few minutes when Locus had pulled him between the hospital and the ship were awful. There was nothing to do but sit and stew in his own frustration. It was boring and infuriating and he  _ hated it. _

Being in Locus’ armor was better. He had readings on Locus, on their environment, all sorts of things to keep himself occupied. He couldn’t quite interface with the ship, not without Locus moving his chip there instead, but it was so much better than nothing. 

“I mean it.” Locus pointed to a blinking light on the ship’s controls. “I’m going to answer that, and if you say anything, I’ll pull you.” 

“Aw, you don’t want your new friends to know I’m alive?” Felix pouted. “I’m hurt, Sam.” 

“Don’t call me that. And stay quiet, or I’ll pull the chip.” Felix wanted to press the issue, but he also wanted to see whatever was about to happen, and he really  _ didn’t _ want to be stuck with nothing to do but sit and think, so he mimed zipping his lips and diverted some of his attention to figuring out how to keep Locus from pulling him whenever he felt like it. He was  _ not _ going to be trapped in that damn chip any more. 

Locus pressed the button next to the blinking light, and the ship’s communications activated. 

“Hey, partner! You would not  _ believe _ the crap we’ve been through since you and Wash left!” Felix stared at the ship’s controls, where a voice that sounded an awful lot like one of the colorful morons was coming from. 

“I may have had one or two... _ developments _ of my own,” Locus answered in a perfectly normal voice, like it was perfectly normal for one of the fucking  _ sim troopers _ to call him a  _ perfectly normal _ thing like  _ partner. _

“Really? The Lieutenants said Wash was stable. I figured you’d be bored by now!” Felix flipped a holographic dagger, wishing it was a real one so he could throw it into the ship’s controls and destroy the communications array. 

“Unfortunately, I have kept myself busy. Are you and the others returning to Chorus?” Locus asked. Felix really,  _ really _ hoped so. He wanted to figure out every single way an AI could kill a sim trooper. He was sure he could manage at least six if he was creative enough. Probably more if he could get Locus to plug him into this ship, or anything connected to the hospital’s system. 

“Yeah, we’ll be there soon. You still there? We could meet up and-”

“I will not be lingering on Chorus,” Locus interrupted. “Something has come up, and now that you and your companions are returning to watch over Agent Washington, I’ll be leaving.” 

“Aw, you won’t even stick around to say hi to your new partner?” 

“Grif.” Locus’ voice was sharp, exasperated, but...he didn’t reject the label. And now, Felix knew which of the sims would be replacing Tucker as his least favorite. For Dexter Grif, he was sure he could think of an additional seven or eight ways an AI could kill a sim trooper. Maybe Felix could get someone to put his chip in Grif’s armor, and he could take control of the suit and reprogram his filters to keep out oxygen. 

“Fine, fine. We might be here for a while, taking care of Wash. Tucker and Carolina have that look, you know, where they’re worried and pissed and they’re gonna explode soon? Anyway, I’ll let you know when they explode, so then maybe you can stop by and visit after you do whatever you’re off doing!”

“We shall see,” Locus sighed. “Goodbye, Grif.” 

“Bye, partner!” Again, no correction as the transmission ended. Felix decided suffocation by his own armor was too quick and painless for Grif. Maybe Felix could find a way to starve him. Slowly. 

“I did not expect you to actually remain quiet,” Locus said as he sat in the pilot’s seat and focused on the ship’s controls, the ship humming to life a moment later. 

“Sorry, you letting that horrific mound of grease call you  _ partner _ made me run some diagnostics on myself. I thought maybe it was possible for an AI to hallucinate.” Felix didn’t even try to keep the venom out of his voice. 

“Grif is...an interesting case,” Locus acknowledged. 

“An interesting...for fuck’s sake, Locus! I’ve been dead for, what? Less than a year? And you not only replaced me, you replaced me with one of the fucking  _ sim troopers, _ who are the people who  _ fucking killed me, _ and you even picked the gross, fat,  _ orange one?” _ Felix could understand not being thrilled to see him, considering Locus was definitely holding the whole manipulation thing against him, but this was...beyond unbelievable. 

“I did not replace you.” The ship was lifting off the ground. 

“Like hell you didn’t! Put this ship back down! I’m not going anywhere until you explain what the fuck I just heard!” Felix really,  _ really _ wished throwing his hologram knives would do some damage, because putting one in either Locus’ leg or the ship’s controls would really make him feel better. 

“You do not actually have a choice,” Locus pointed out as he guided the ship away from the planet. Felix fumed, searched for some leverage. 

Oh. He was in Locus’ armor. Locus was also in Locus’ armor. 

He could lock up that armor and refuse to release it until Locus explained some things. Like why the fuck he was  _ letting Dexter fucking Grif call him partner. _

Locus was  _ Felix’s _ partner. No one else’s.

And maybe he’d been dead, so it was a little less horrible that Locus had tried to move on, but Felix was back now, and no one else could have his place. 

And if he locked up Locus’ armor now, when Locus wasn’t correcting the sim trooper, then Locus would never trust him, and the grease bag would take Felix’s place. Just the  _ idea _ of it was unacceptable.

So Felix let Locus fly away from Chorus, let him believe Felix was a helpless little AI. He’d play nice, get Locus to trust him, let his guard down, and then he’d make sure Locus was  _ his. _

He’d get rid of that greasy sim trooper first, and then he’d get rid of the  _ rest _ of the morons.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going ahead and marking this as part of a series because I do have one or two more ideas about stuff for this AU, one of which I've already started on, so if you want to see more AI Felix, drop me a kudos and a comment and subscribe to the series if you want to know when I post the next piece.


End file.
